Hi Matt, The easy way to think about this is that there are 100 centimeters in a meter, and to measure the size of the square you have to multiply one side of the square by another. Therefore, a square that is 1x1 meters is 1 sq meter, but 100x100 is 10,000 centimeters, therefore there are 10,000 centimeters in a square meter. I hope this makes sense...